Mit verhaltener Stimme

As Printed on a Score

Printed above the vocal staff at the phrase it colours, usually with a soft dynamic, and in some editions with an Italian rendering beside it. It is a character marking without a formal cancellation; it governs the passage until a new expressive direction or a stronger dynamic.

How Composers Use It

Verhalten means held back: the voice is quiet because the singer is containing something, not because the music is distant. It is Mahler’s vernacular for a quality an Italian score would suggest with mezza voce or sotto voce, but with a stronger sense of suppressed feeling. Use it where the words carry grief or awe, and pair it with pp so the level is fixed.

Example

Mahler, Kindertotenlieder, “Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n!”, voice, m. 11: “mit verhaltener Stimme”, after a pp the bar before, in a song headed “Langsam und schwermütig, nicht schleppend”.

Related Terms